Page:True stories of girl heroines.djvu/417

Rh "Miss Pendrill, I have been hoping you would come out for a mouthful of fresh air. And how goes your patient?"

"Very, very ill; but always in a stupor. I can leave her for a few minutes sometimes"

"Ah, good; then we will have supper together out here on the sand; it will eat better to you than in there, and"

"Oh, but, Mr. Kelly, I am infectious"

"Stuff and nonsense!—as though I cared for that! We are in the same boat as to that, for I helped to carry her ashore. But we needn't be more doleful than circumstances make us. I am peckish, if you are not. Do let us have supper here together!"

That was the first of many such meals, taken just in those moments when Ursula could leave her patient, and run out into the fresh air. It seemed as though those Arabs must be cooking all day long, for there was always some appetising dish ready; and oh, the blessed relief of those odd minutes spent with one who could give word for word, and whose eyes shone with friendly sympathy and kindly concern! Ursula said in her heart every day as it went by, that but for this she must have died or gone mad.

The Captain had been right in his prognostication. Mrs. Varden sank gradually, and by the end of the